by Lee Savino
She looked about the crowd, recognizing every face, but not the hate twisted expressions. These were the bishop’s people, the hand picked faithful. Still, she hoped that at least one who had benefited from her or her mother’s healing wisdom would stand for her.
“I am innocent.” She spread her hands. “I will not listen to these lies.”
“Shut your vile mouth, whore.” The priest backhanded her, and Francesca sagged to the ground. “You will not speak again.”
Wiping blood from her face, she heard her sentence. “She will be flogged for her transgressions and then drowned.”
A commotion at the back of the church interrupted. Francesca used the lull to rise from the floor, her hand over her throbbing face.
A man was riding a stallion down between the wood pews, sporting a pistol and unruly flaxen hair. He was grinning like a fool.
“Lovely evening for a ride, isn’t it?” Sebastian asked the gathering as his stallion trotted past. People pressed aside, away from the snorting beast. “Haven’t been to mass in ages. Almost never, actually, though there was this one time with a whore in Spain…never mind.” Sebastian reached the head of the church.
“You.” He pointed his weapon at the priest. “Touch my wife again and I’ll blow your head off.”
“You can’t ride in here,” the priest sputtered. “This is a holy place!”
The stallion took that moment to defecate on the altar.
“Sorry, old boy. Wouldn’t know about all that. I’m just a farmer.” Sebastian turned his grin to Francesca, who couldn’t move, lest her heart burst with happiness.
The Bishop looked around to his followers, but none of the peasants seemed willing to take on a crazy Englishman with a gun. Apparently, persecuting a healing woman was all they had signed on for.
Sebastian extended a hand to Francesca. “My lady? Would you do me the honor of allowing me to escort you home?”
“Yes,” she whispered, happy tears falling. “Of course.”
As they rode back down the aisle, the bishop made one last appeal to the crowd. “But what about the witch? This murderess?”
“Shame on you, Bishop,” Juan called from the balcony. The head vaquero had his rifle trained on the crowd, providing cover for his mistress and her man. “Blaming an innocent woman, daughter of one of our town’s founders.”
“Will no one stand for my wife? Your healer?”
“I will,” an old lady said from the back. “I knew her mother. Francesca comes to my hut every full moon and rubs my aching joints. She brings tea made from herbs in her garden. There is no evil in her, only knowledge.” The old woman looked about. “Shame, shame on all of you for not thinking of how she healed you, and remembering her goodness above these lies.”
“What of the butcher’s wife? This woman killed her,” the bishop bellowed.
“The butcher’s wife has a name,” Francesca called as her husband’s horse reached the front of the church. “Camila.”
“And she did not die by Señora De la Vega’s hand,” Juan added. “Her son told me the story. Francesca left the mother and child healthy, but the butcher drove his wife from her bed. She collapsed, and he kicked her. It was then the bleeding started, and never stopped. If you want justice, Pepe is the one you want. Even now Camila’s family comes to take Pepito and the new baby, and see justice done to the murderer.”
“Ay dios mio,” Francesca whispered. Sebastian squeezed her hand before kicking his stallion forward to exit the church and ride for home.
*
At the hacienda, he helped her down. “Are you all right?” He touched her face and Francesca winced at the bruised skin.
“I’m fine. Beyond striking me, they did not hurt me.”
Her husband sank to his knees in the dirt, clutching her hands and bringing them to his forehead like a penitent. “I’m so sorry.”
Francesca freed her hands so she could cup his handsome face. The fair skin was weathered and freckled from hours working in his newfound life. He was so beautiful to her.
“You’re forgiven.”
“Francesca” he breathed. “I—”
She stopped the rest with a kiss, bending down to reach his face as he knelt. His lips were warm and good and tasted of life.
Reluctantly she broke the kiss. “Diego will come for me. He killed his brother.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened. “Come. Let’s get inside.”
Ana was waiting.
“He came riding up, and I thought he was a ghost.”
“He is pale enough,” Francesca teased.
Ana cupped both their faces, giving Francesca a kiss. Sebastian got one too, along with a light slap and a few choice Spanish words. Her tone was affectionate.
“I know,” Sebastian agreed with Ana’s insults. “I am all those things and more. I would’ve groveled and pledged myself your slave. I’d plow fields, sleep in the sty, live on scraps, if only you let me stay.”
“I’d rather you share my table and my bed,” Francesca said. “I find you are more useful there, Englishman. And you don’t need to beg. I know you already are enthralled.”
He kissed her again, and again, until Ana went away. Knees weak, Francesca held onto him. She couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
The mood had turned by the time Juan arrived at the hacienda.
“The townspeople are convinced, but the bishop may still want to cause trouble,” the vaquero said, after cuffing Sebastian.
Francesca told them of her meeting with Diego.
“Now there is the real threat,” Sebastian said. “Diego will not like that you got away so easily. He will come to take the ranch, and bring his vaqueros and his friends in the Royal Mountain gang.”
“What makes you think that?” Francesca asked.
Sebastian shrugged. “Cage has been doing some asking around. It seems the Royal Mountain gang expects fat prospects from a mysterious benefactor in the valley. I’ll bet you anything Diego promised them wealth for helping him take the ranch. If he can’t deliver, he’s a dead man.”
“Where is Cage?” Juan asked in a sharp voice.
“On an errand for me,” Sebastian told them. “If we’re lucky, he may be back before Diego makes his final attack. In the meantime, we make ready.” He regarded the circle of friends soberly. “We must turn the hacienda into a stronghold.”
After he laid out the plan, and Ana and Juan dispersed to begin the work, Francesca caught her husband’s arm.
“Mi amor, I cannot ask you to put yourself between me and my enemies. They will come for you. Perhaps it is better for me to stand alone—”
“Francesca.” He cupped her face in both hands. “You will never be alone again.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“We stand together. I will live for you, I will die for you. I left Nell, but I’ve learned my lesson. A man stands by his woman. I owe it to you, as I did to her.”
“Nell is watching you now,” Francesca whispered. “She and your mother. They are proud of you.”
“I’m going to make you proud of me too.” He kissed her forehead. “Now let’s prepare for our last stand.”
*
For three days, they prepared and waited. The hacienda became a fortress, with boarded windows and gunpowder stashes in every hallway. Francesca found her husband’s old military pistol and gave it to Sebastian. For herself, she had a small revolver she said had been her mother’s, and she carried it everywhere.
They still did chores, but stayed close together in pairs. Much to Francesca’s dismay, Sebastian confined her to the hacienda.
“It’s you he wants,” Sebastian told her. “It is not even about owning the ranch. It’s about revenge. You represent everything he doesn’t deserve.”
“What about the crops? The cattle?”
“The crops will live or die depending on rain,” Juan said. “The vaqueros are watching the cattle. Diego will not want to kill them when he could take them for his own.” The head vaquero had sent hi
s family away. “My family is large. We may be poor, but we are fighters. And we defend our own.”
“I don’t think your family will be targets,” Sebastian said.
“But you, Juan,” Francesca wrung her hands, “you should not be here. You have sons to think about.”
“Señora De La Vega,” Juan said, and Francesca fell silent. “I will stand by you. Your father took me in as a boy and gave me work. You do not know this, but my own father was a thief and a drunkard. Your father gave me a chance to prove myself different, when no other ranch would. It proves that a man can turn out much different than his sire.” Juan glanced at Sebastian, who nodded.
“I will be here, when the enemies come.” Juan cocked his rifle with a decisive sound.
The drought, heat and endless waiting wore on Francesca. She spent nights pacing in the dining room until Sebastian picked her up and carried her to bed. Once there, he did his best to wear her out, but even then he felt her leave the bed in the hours before dawn.
“Come back to bed, darling,” he said. They’d moved their room to the office, an inner room with no windows. Sebastian wasn’t taking any chances.
She obeyed, laying on the makeshift pallet, curling into him.
“We can still run from all this,” she whispered. “I can give the cattle to Juan and Ana and leave all this behind. We could go to England.”
He stroked her black hair from her face. “And leave your apothecary? Your mother’s grove, all your work? The townspeople need you.”
“They were certainly quick to condemn me.”
“Only the few faithful to the bishop.” A few townspeople had paid visits to Francesca, offering their help and support. She’d sent them away, reluctant to involve them in the fight. “Without Diego I think the bishop will not be a threat. Think of how many years he wished to persecute your mother?”
“My father wouldn’t let him,” she said.
“And I won’t let him bother you either.”
Francesca sighed. “I live for the day a man will respect a woman, even without another man to protect her.”
“Then you won’t need me,” Sebastian pretended to pout.
“I would still need you,” she purred, and slid her hand down his chest.
He caught his breath, more than ready for her fingers to reach their destination. “Is that all I am to you? A pretty face and a nice, long cock?”
“Yes.” She moved over him, pulling away the blanket and following her hand’s descent. “And if you don’t like it, you can lie back and think of England.”
*
Their enemies came at nightfall.
Francesca was making her usual rounds of the dining room, fretting. “Acequias almost empty. Fields dry as tinder. Ay Dios Mio, I’m glad my father and husband aren’t alive to see their ranch ruined.”
Sebastian lit a cigaro and smoked one handed, a revolver in the other. He stood guard at the window, watching for signs of movement.
“Hey,” he said in a soft tone. “Nothing is ruined for good. Whatever happens, we will survive, and live to enjoy another day. Together.”
She smiled through her fearful expression, and started to answer, when a gun cracked in the distance. “What was that?”
Sebastian snubbed the cigaro out and took his place at the window. “Get Juan. It’s starting.”
The head vaquero came, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “In the dark, eh?”
“Seems so, old boy.” Sebastian kept his face neutral, and inwardly cursed up a storm. Their enemies would press forward and try to find a way in, and, if there were enough of the gang members involved, they would almost certainly find it. He told himself it didn’t matter, as long as he killed them off as they entered, or left only a few for Francesca’s gun. If he could stop enough of her enemies, she could handle the rest. It would be a good death on his part. One for the poets.
“I see something moving out there,” Juan said. “I wish the moon was higher.”
“So do they,” Sebastian said. He and Juan stood at ready.
“Barricade yourself in the pantry,” he told Francesca. They’d argued over this, but he hoped now, in the crucial moment, she’d obey.
“There is no need,” she said. “Listen.”
“I hear it,” Juan said.
Sebastian stilled and listened to the distant, hissing sound. “What is it?”
“Rain,” Francesca said.
A few minutes later, the downpour hit the hacienda, pounding the courtyard flagstones.
“The acequias will fill in no time,” Juan called to Sebastian over the roaring rain.
“Bloody good defense, too,” Sebastian agreed. Men could force their way into the hacienda, but their gun powder would be soaked. It would almost put the fight on equal footing.
The men startled as they heard a crisp, stony sound. Sebastian lit a match and they peered through the boards to watch small round pieces of ice pile up on the ground.
“My god. Hail.”
“Gracias, madre,” Francesca said, a smile curving her lips.
They slept in shifts and thanked whoever was listening for the turn of good luck.
The air changed, and morning dawned a bit cooler. A heavy mist lay over the fields.
“Damn and double damn. Perfect weather for an ambush.” Sebastian waited on edge, his gun in hand, watching through a crack in the boards for the ambush he felt was coming. Finally, shots were fired.
Francesca came hurrying.
“Not yet,” Sebastian told her. “They haven’t come close enough.”
“Then who were they shooting?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I don’t know.” He took his position as guard again, gun at ready.
A few minutes later, a cry in the kitchen had them sprinting to Ana.
“Fire, I see fire. At the apothecary. Oh, Francesca, your herbs…”
“It’s a distraction,” Juan said. “We cannot go.”
“Not much damage a fire will do in the damp like this,” Sebastian soothed Francesca.
She nodded, pain across her face. “Those bastards. I will rip out their tongues.”
The sound of breaking glass came from the far end of the house.
“Bar yourself in the pantry,” Sebastian ordered. Ana nodded and pulled Francesca there. He and Juan went, guns at ready, but found only a broken window.
“Another distraction,” Sebastian cursed, and raced back to the kitchen in time to see the door straining to open, beyond the barricade of a heavy cabinet they’d pushed in front of it.
“Come in at your own peril,” he shouted, raising his weapon. Behind him, he heard the pantry door open.
“Get back in there,” he ordered Francesca, cursing when she came to stand by his side, her own revolver at the ready.
From the living room, he heard more breaking glass and Juan’s cry.
Then the shooting began. Their enemies opened fire and bullets fell like last night’s rain. They hit the adobe and the wood barricading the windows, and the glass.
Sebastian pushed his wife behind him, focusing on the kitchen door until he could take it no more. He abandoned patience and shot into the door as a warning.
The shooting continued, but not as many bullets hit the house. Whoever had been outside the kitchen door had stopped trying to force entry.
“This is it. We’ll make a fair show, and see if we can run them off,” Sebastian snarled. “You all right, darling?”
“They are cowards. Shooting into a person’s home.” Francesca’s expression was fierce, but she looked a little ill.
“It’s going to be all right.”
In the dining room, Juan cried out.
Ana came from the pantry, her face wan but determined. In her hands she held a heavy revolver. “Go to Juan. I can hold this door.”
“If it moves, shoot it,” Sebastian said, and grabbed Francesca’s hand. She wasn’t going to cower in the pantry, so he would keep her by his side, and step in front of any bullet m
eant for her.
Juan crouched behind the dining room table. There was some broken glass and a barricade had fallen, giving them a clear view of the garden.
Sebastian bent over to run to Juan, but his wife rose with a little cry.
“Darling, get down.” He pulled her down.
“Did you see?” Juan asked. “Facedown in the mud?”
“Who?” Sebastian asked.
“Diego.” Francesca tugged at her husband’s hold. “I must go to him! He may still be alive.”
“No darling.” Sebastian dropped his rifle to catch her in his arms. “He’s gone. It’s over.”
“I could help him.” She struggled.
“Wait,” Juan said. “I hear something.”
Sebastian grabbed his gun with one hand, gripping his wife with the other. He wouldn’t put it past her to try to sneak into the garden, even when the Royal Mountain gang roamed about.
Someone was singing loudly, “Farewell and adieu, you fair Spanish ladies…”
Another voice joined in, horribly off key. “Farewell and adieu, ye ladies of Spain…”
Francesca wrinkled her nose. “Who is that?”
Sebastian’s face broke into a smile. “The cavalry.”
Four men came striding out of the mist. Cage, followed by two tall, dark-haired men, and a third, a bearded and shaggy giant.
“Friends of yours?” Juan asked.
“Friends, and friends of friends. Seems my years in America haven’t been wasted after all.”
The song ended.
“Anyone alive in there?” Cage shouted.
“Right as rain,” Sebastian called. “Just stop bloody singing!”
“Is that Lord Chivington?” One of the dark haired men strode forward, grinning.
“It is, Mr. Oberon. Lovely morning for a shootout, isn’t it?” Sebastian bantered as Cage and the rest broke the barricade.
“You wouldn’t know, you lazy git…What were you doing while we ran the gang off? Catching up on beauty sleep? Did the gunfire wake you up?”
“It wouldn’t have, if you’d done the rescue properly. Bloody late, as usual.”
The friends of friends stood with guns at ready as Sebastian stepped over broken glass to greet Cage, and pound the dark haired “Mr. Oberon” on the back.
“We rode all night to reach you,” Oberon said.
